Mycorrhizal Fungi Inoculation Improves Capparis spinosa’s Yield, Nutrient Uptake and Photosynthetic Efficiency under Water Deficit

Agricultural yields are under constant jeopardy as climate change and abiotic pressures spread worldwide. Using rhizospheric microbes as biostimulants/biofertilizers is one of the best ways to improve agro-agriculture in the face of these things. The purpose of this experiment was to investigate whether a native arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculum (AMF-complex) might improve caper (Capparis spinosa) seedlings’ nutritional status, their morphological/growth performance and photosynthetic efficiency under water-deficit stress (WDS). Thus, caper plantlets inoculated with or without an AMF complex (+AMF and −AMF, respectively) were grown under three gradually increasing WDS regimes, i.e., 75, 50 and 25% of field capacity (FC). Overall, measurements of morphological traits, biomass production and nutrient uptake (particularly P, K+, Mg2+, Fe2+ and Zn2+) showed that mycorrhizal fungi inoculation increased these variables significantly, notably in moderate and severe WDS conditions. The increased WDS levels reduced the photochemical efficiency indices (Fv/Fm and Fv/Fo) in −AMF plants, while AMF-complex application significantly augmented these parameters. Furthermore, the photosynthetic pigments content was substantially higher in +AMF seedlings than −AMF controls at all the WDS levels. Favorably, at 25% FC, AMF-colonized plants produce approximately twice as many carotenoids as non-colonized ones. In conclusion, AMF inoculation seems to be a powerful eco-engineering strategy for improving the caper seedling growth rate and drought tolerance in harsh environments.

Effect of Global Warming on Food Security

This chapter will aim to explicate the challenges posed by global warming or the climate change conditions on food security especially from the point of view of India. The negative impact of global warming has been seen, especially in developing economies, on the agricultural yields leading towards food insecurity. The four pillars of food security (i.e., availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability) are having an impact on climate change. The present study will begin by highlighting the concept of global warming. It will further provide an overview of the Indian food security system followed by the impact of global warming on the food security level in India. The study will also highlight the global warming and food security scenario in the present situation of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in India.

Characterizing Prediction Uncertainty in Agricultural Modeling via a Coupled Statistical–Physical Framework

Multiple factors, many of them environmental, coalesce to inform agricultural decisions. Farm planning is often done months in advance. These decisions have to be made with the information available at the time, including current trends, historical data, or predictions of what future weather patterns may be. The effort described in this work is geared towards a flexible mathematical and software framework for simulating the impact of meteorological variability on future crop yield. Our framework is data driven and can easily be applied to any location with suitable historical observations. This will enable site-specific studies that are needed for rigorous risk assessments and climate adaptation planning. The framework combines a physics-based model of crop yield with stochastic process models for meteorological inputs. Combined with techniques from uncertainty quantification, global sensitivity analysis, and machine learning, this hybrid statistical–physical framework allows studying the potential impacts of meteorological uncertainty on future agricultural yields and identify the environmental variables that contribute the most to prediction uncertainty. To highlight the utility of our general approach, we studied the predicted yields of multiple crops in multiple scenarios constructed from historical data. Using global sensitivity analysis, we then identified the key environmental factors contributing to uncertainty in these scenarios’ predictions.

Biotechnological approaches to develop nitrogen-fixing cereals: A review

Agricultural yields are often limited by nitrogen (N) availability, especially in countries of the developing world, whereas in industrialized nations the application of chemical N fertilizers has reached unsustainable levels that have resulted in severe environmental consequences. Finding alternatives to inorganic fertilizers is critical for sustainable and secure food production. Although gaseous nitrogen (N2) is abundant in the atmosphere, it cannot be assimilated by most living organisms. Only a selected group of microorganisms termed diazotrophs, have evolved the ability to reduce N2 to generate NH3 in a process known as biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) catalysed by nitrogenase, an oxygen-sensitive enzyme complex. This ability presents an opportunity to improve the nutrition of crop plants, through the introduction into cereal crops of either the N fixing bacteria or the nitrogenase enzyme responsible for N fixation. This review explores three potential approaches to obtain N-fixing cereals: (a) engineering the nitrogenase enzyme to function in plant cells; (b) engineering the legume symbiosis into cereals; and (c) engineering cereals with the capability to associate with N-fixing bacteria.

Pengelolaan Saluran Irigasi Guna Meningkatkan Produktivitas Pertanian di Desa Jubel Kidul

Agriculture is a sector of economic development considering its function and role in providing food for the population, as well as the place where the livelihoods of the residents of Jubelkidul Village depend. To increase food yields, irrigation network management was held in Jubelkidul Village. Irrigation is the most important thing in the food production process. The development of the Jubelkidul irrigation area is carried out with the aim of maintaining the sustainability of irrigation water supply in the Jubelkidul area. Efforts that can be made to maintain the sustainability of the function of the irrigation area of ​​Jubelkidul Village in supporting increased agricultural yields are participatory management of irrigation areas through institutional empowerment of water-using farmers. agriculture in Jubelkidul Village. This research is descriptive qualitative research with survey method. The research location is the Jubelkidul irrigation area which includes 5 hamlets in the Sugio sub-district. The types of data used are primary and secondary data collected by field observations, and interviews. The results show that the irrigation management of Jubelkidul village on water use is influenced by the dimensions of location, time and certain qualities.

Application of Internet of Things (IoT) for Optimized Greenhouse Environments

This review presents the state-of-the-art research on IoT systems for optimized greenhouse environments. The data were analyzed using descriptive and statistical methods to infer relationships between the Internet of Things (IoT), emerging technologies, precision agriculture, agriculture 4.0, and improvements in commercial farming. The discussion is situated in the broader context of IoT in mitigating the adverse effects of climate change and global warming in agriculture through the optimization of critical parameters such as temperature and humidity, intelligent data acquisition, rule-based control, and resolving the barriers to the commercial adoption of IoT systems in agriculture. The recent unexpected and severe weather events have contributed to low agricultural yields and losses; this is a challenge that can be resolved through technology-mediated precision agriculture. Advances in technology have over time contributed to the development of sensors for frost prevention, remote crop monitoring, fire hazard prevention, precise control of nutrients in soilless greenhouse cultivation, power autonomy through the use of solar energy, and intelligent feeding, shading, and lighting control to improve yields and reduce operational costs. However, particular challenges abound, including the limited uptake of smart technologies in commercial agriculture, price, and accuracy of the sensors. The barriers and challenges should help guide future Research & Development projects and commercial applications.

Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Application of the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform

In this paper, we assess the economy-wide impact of Climate Change (CC) on agriculture and food security in 20 Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) countries. Specifically, we focus on the following three channels through which CC may affect agricultural and non-agricultural production: (i) agricultural yields; (ii) labor productivity in agriculture, and; (iii) economy-wide labor productivity. We implement the analysis using the Integrated Economic-Environmental Model (IEEM) and databases for 20 LAC available through the OPEN IEEM Platform. Our analysis identifies those countries most affected according to key indicators including Gross Domestic Product (GDP), international commerce, sectoral output, poverty, and emissions. Most countries experience negative impacts on GDP, with the exception of the major soybean producing countries, namely, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. We find that CC-induced crop productivity and labor productivity changes affect countries differently. The combined impact, however, indicates that Belize, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Paraguay would fare the worst. Early identification of these hardest hit countries can enable policy makers pre-empting these effects and beginning the design of adaptation strategies early on. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, only Argentina, Chile and Uruguay would experience small increases in emissions.

Extreme Climate Shocks and Green Agricultural Development: Evidence from the 2008 Snow Disaster in China

Extreme climate shocks cause agricultural yield reductions and increase long-term climate risk, altering farmers’ long-term production decisions and affecting green agricultural development (GAD). We take the 2008 snow disaster in China as an extreme climate shock, calculate the GAD index by the entropy weighting method, and use the difference-in-difference method to study the extreme climate shock’s impact on GAD. The results show that: (1) Extreme climate shocks are detrimental to GAD, with the snow disaster decreasing China’s GAD level by 3.07%. (2) The impacts of extreme climate shocks are heterogeneous across climate and economic zones, with greater impact in humid and developed regions. (3) Extreme climate shocks affect GAD mainly by reducing farmers’ willingness to cultivate, and increasing energy consumption, fertilizer, and pesticide input. (4) Extreme climate shocks do not reduce agricultural yields in the long run. Still, they reduce the total value of agricultural production and decrease the quality of agricultural products expressed in terms of unit value. The findings of this study have policy implications for developing countries in coping with extreme climate shocks and promoting GAD.

Content of Amino Acids in Maize and Yellow Lupine after Fluorine Application to Soil

Pollution of the natural environment with fluorine compounds makes the continuous monitoring of the content of this element necessary, not only in the air, water and soil, but also in food. A high level of fluorine contamination of soils can affect quality of the obtained yields, affecting the amino acid composition of protein. It often becomes a cause of reducing nutrition and feed value of agricultural yields. In the undertaken studies, the influence of fluorine application to the soil on the amino acid content in proteins accumulated in the above-ground parts (aerial) of Zea mays L. and Lupinus luteus L. was studied. The lowest and medium doses of fluorine had a significant positive effect on the content of exogenous and endogenous amino acids in the protein of the aerial mass of maize, for which the increase of sum of all amino acids was 7% and 8%, respectively, in relation to controls. The above-ground parts of yellow lupine were characterised by a much higher content of the tested amino acids than maize. The subsequent influence of soil contamination with fluorine on the amino acid content in yellow lupine did not have the same effect as in the main plant, and the influence of fluorine was somewhat limited. With respect to yellow lupine, it was demonstrated that the lowest fluorine dose (100 mg F kg−1 of soil), did not have a beneficial influence on the sum of all amino acids. The medium and highest doses of fluorine depressed in a small degree the content of the sum of these compounds in the dry mass of yellow lupine.

The impact of incentives on the decision to transfer agricultural land functions to non-agricultural uses

The influence of incentives on landowner’s decision-making regarding land-use change is an intriguing consideration when developing sustainable agricultural land policies. Owners of agricultural land in rural areas with varying characteristics and varying agricultural yields each year have varying views on changing or maintaining their land. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of incentives on people’s attitudes toward maintaining or selling land (land-use change from agricultural land to non-agricultural land). This study employed a descriptive analysis to calculate the impact of incentives from the government on the decision to change or keep the land. The responses of 500 respondents were categorized as follows: 20-46.67 in favor of land change, 46.67-73.33 neutral, and 73.4-100 in favor of maintaining land. The analysis revealed that additional factors influence the decision to sell or maintain the land. However, some villages seek to preserve land through government incentives.